Seattle Weekly - December 10 - 16, 2003


Santa's Got a Mixed Bag

A few bright lights enliven the predictable holiday theater scene.

by Steve Wiecking

I initially didn't go into The Eight: Reindeer Monologues (Open Circle Theater, ends Sat., Dec. 20, 206-382-4250) expecting hilarity, because its preshow entertainment, featuring some audience-interactive elves, was aggressively unhilarious: Even at this late date, and with any number of Adam Sandler movies to the contrary, there are whole handfuls of actors who are still somehow convinced that volume plus profanity equals instant humor. And some of the performers in the main event weren't up to the rather easy, if crudely amusing, demands of Jeff Goode's one-joke script (Santa's team is comprised of filthy-mouthed mammals full of salacious gossip when the "Fat Man" is brought to trial for sexual misconduct). Then Dusty Warren appeared in a tracksuit on an exercise bike ordering chai tea over a cell phone and I almost hurt myself laughing. Warren steals the night as Prancer, aka "Hollywood," a smarmy L.A. reindeer dissing everything from Sam Elliot's mustache in the movie Prancer to the veracity of Rudolph's TV special, in which the female Vixen is mistakenly portrayed as a buck ("Putting antlers on that slut is like having a centerfold with a pop-up phallus"). A couple of the other reindeers turn in cagey work-Skot Kurruk as a morose Donner with a bad back, Marty Mukhalian doing Audrey Hepburn as elitist ballerina DancerÑbut Warren is such a gut buster he makes the rest of the evening worth it.